yielded to
his madcap brother from the south! gusty and rough and a hand-to-hand
fight for progress all the time, with tears running down the cheeks, and
breath coming in gasps from the chest! It is not so cold, and the ice is
less crisp, its smooth skin is furrowed and wrinkled, soft and woolly
beneath the touch of the steel blades; but the snow still lies thickly
upon the low-lying ground, and holds in its luminous embrace all the
reflections which the capricious moon will lend it.

For the first half hour, while the moon was still very brilliant and the
night air very still, it seemed to Diogenes as if the loneliness around
him was only fictitious, as if somewhere--far away mayhap--men moved in
the same way as he did, swiftly and silently over the surface of the
ice. It seemed to him in fact that he was being followed.

He tried to make sure of this, straining his ears to listen, and now and
then he caught very distinctly the sound of the metallic click of
several pairs of skates. His senses, trained to over-acuteness through
years of hard fighting and of campaigning, could not easily be deceived;
and presently there was no doubt in his mind that Nicolaes Beresteyn or
the Lord of Stoutenburg had set spies upon his track.

This knowledge caused him only to set his teeth, and to strike out more
vigorously and more rapidly than before; those who followed him were
fairly numerous--over half a dozen he reckoned--the only chance of
evading them was, therefore, in flight. He took to noting the rolling
banks of cloud with a more satisfied eye, and when, after the first hour
or so, the light of the waning moon became more dim and even at times
disappeared completely, he took the first opportunity that presented
itself of making a detour over a backwater of the Meer, which he knew
must bewilder his pursuers.

Whether the pursuit was continued after that, he could not say. His eyes
trying to pierce the gloom could tell him nothing; but there were many
intricate little by-ways just south of the Meer over backwaters and
natural canals, which he knew well, and over these he started on an
eccentric and puzzling career which was bound to baffle the spies on his
track.

Whenever he spoke subsequently of the many adventures which befell him
during the first days of this memorable New Year, he never was very
explicit on the subject of this night's run back to Houdekerk.

As soon as he had rid himself--as he thought--of his pursu